44 45 46 47 48 Displaying 316-322 of 477 Articles

Last fall, Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer wrote here and in his New York Times column about writers who use a we voice when truly they are I's writing personal opinions. In a few cases, Zimmer wrote, he'd accept using the plural pronoun for the singular, officially called nosism, from nos, we in Latin, but in general he deplored the practice. Using we for I opens writers up to "charges of gutlessness and self-importance," Zimmer wrote; "the we disease...continues to infect many written genres."  Continue reading...
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Is the bloom off your New Year's resolution rose? If so, you’re in good company. Four out of five people who make New Year's resolutions eventually break them. And 33 percent don’t even last till the end of January!  Continue reading...
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Blog Excerpts

Is "Hey" the New "Dear"?

"Across the Internet the use of dear is going the way of sealing wax," writes Dionne Searcey in the Wall Street Journal. In its place, the much less formal hey has become the salutation of choice. Read Searcey's article here.
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To open a writing class at a recent conference of New York City high school newspaper kids, I wrote this sentence on the board:

The woman stood on the hillside and looked down at the valley below.

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The Elements Of Clunk

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ben Yagoda writes about the errors he's noticed in his students' compositions. Very often, he says, students change their writing to be "longer and more prosaic": "They give a new sound to prose. I call it clunk." Read Yagoda's guided tour to "clunk" here.
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If I'm feeling "down" or overwhelmed, nothing improves my mood faster than cleaning a desk, a drawer or a closet. Call me deranged, but I adore organizing. Perhaps that's why I was so happy a few years ago to stumble across the marvelous website Unclutterer hosted by Erin Doland. I skim through it every day.

Now, after interviewing her for this article I am, frankly, gobsmacked.  Continue reading...
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Writing offers many advantages as a medium for thought. Writing can be accurate: true in detail to fact and nuance; versatile: no subject is beyond its grasp; imperishable: first editions return in time to dust, but texts can be reprinted; economical: a slim volume can hold a treasury of ideas.  Continue reading...
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